Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore   

BSNL expediting cell network expansion

Staff Reporter

Coimbatore: The Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), Coimbatore, is expediting the expansion of the Cellular network in Coimbatore Secondary Switching Area by adding new cell sites on a war-footing, said A. Shajahan, General Manager, BSNL (holding additional charge as Principal General Manager).

Talking to reporters in connection with the BSNL week celebrations observed in the first week of October, Mr. Shajahan pointed out that contests were being organised for corporation schoolstudents.

He said that expansion of cellular network under Phase IV and Phase IV plus was almost nearing completion. Out of the 221 cell sites planned under this phase 214 had already been commissioned and the work in respect of the remaining would be completed within the next two months. Additional 26 cell sites i.e., Base Transmission Stations (BTS) have been sanctioned for improving the coverage along the National Highway 47. Of the 79 town panchayats, cell coverage had been provided at over 45 town panchayats; of the 163 villages with 5,000 population 92 villages had been covered; and of the 180 villages with 2,000 population 145 villages had been covered so far. Under the Phase V project, the BSNL was aiming at providing cellular connection to even villages having a population of 1,000.

Under the proposed phase V expansion Tamil Nadu would be getting an additional capacity of 42 lakh mobile connections. Coimbatore SSA would get 4.5 lakh connections in three phases. Already value-added services like Global Pocket Radio Services (GPRS) and Multi-Media Message (MMS) are available and very shortly Location Based Services (LBS) and Push-to-Talk (PTT) services would be launched besides 3 G technology.

Basic phone

He pointed out that a lot of new subscribers were enrolling under the Plan 140 and Sulabh Plan (at a lowest monthly rental of Rs 120 in City and Rs 75 in rural areas). Of the total capacity of 4.6 lakh connections, the BSNL Coimbatore had 3.43 lakh working lines as on date.

The total surrender of close to 30,000 landline phones was primarily due to migration by subscribers from landline phones to mobile phones and in stray cases to private operators, he said. Besides installing more BTS for Wireless in Local Loop phones for clearing the waiting list in inaccessible areas, works were on simultaneously for phasing out E10 B exchanges with latest AXE-10 exchanges.

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